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Childhood maltreatment and disordered gambling in adulthood: disentangling causal and familial influences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2020

Genevieve F. Dash Open the ORCID record for Genevieve F. Dash [Opens in a new window] ,
Nicholas G. Martin  and
Wendy S. Slutske
Genevieve F. Dash*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
Nicholas G. Martin
Affiliation:
Queensland Institute of Medical Research-Berghofer, Herston, QLD, AUS
Wendy S. Slutske
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Genevieve F. Dash, E-mail: genevievedash@mail.missouri.edu.
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Abstract

Background

Despite abundant research on the potential causal influence of childhood maltreatment (CM) on psychological maladaptation in adulthood, almost none has implemented the discordant twin design as a means of examining the role of such experiences in later disordered gambling (DG) while accounting for genetic and family environmental confounds. The present study implemented such an approach to disentangle the potential causal and familial factors that may account for the association between CM and DG.

Methods

Participants were 3750 twins from the Australian Twin Registry [Mage = 37.60 (s.d. = 2.31); 58% female]. CM and DG were assessed separately via two semi-structured telephone interviews. Random-intercept generalized linear mixed models were fit to the data; zygosity, sex, educational attainment, childhood psychiatric disorder, adult antisocial behavior, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) were included as covariates.

Results

Neither quasi-causal nor familial effects of CM predicted DG after adjusting for covariates. Educational attainment appeared to reduce the risk of DG while AUD appeared to increase risk; evidence also emerged for familial effects of antisocial behavior on DG. Post-hoc analyses revealed a familial effect of CM on antisocial behavior, indicating that the association between CM and DG identified in unadjusted models and in prior studies may be accounted for by genetic and shared family environmental effects of antisociality.

Conclusions

These findings add to the meager literature showing that CM does not exert a causal effect on DG, and present novel evidence that familial effects of antisocial behavior may account for the association between CM and DG identified in extant non-twin research.

Keywords

Antisocial behaviorchildhood maltreatmentdisordered gamblingmultilevel modelingtwin study
Type
Original Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 52 , Issue 5 , April 2022 , pp. 979 - 988
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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